Microsoft has finally got it right with their latest Windows 7 ad. The cutesy animation paired with an Avatar cameo captures an appropriate (albeit bizarre) aesthetic that informs viewers about Windows 7’s Blu-ray playback support in a fun, creative way. Apple, the ball’s in your court.
[Via Gizmodo]
Check out this utterly brilliant piece of art created by Daniel Kanemoto, a long-time fan of Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel The Walking Dead. In his spare time, talented graphic designer Kanemoto used After Effects to combine Charlie Adlard and Tony Moore’s The Walking Dead artwork and music from Eels (the track is called “Fresh Blood”, how fitting) to create an animated spec title sequence for the upcoming AMC adaptation. You certainly do not have to be a fan of Kirkman’s work to truly appreciate what Kanemoto has done here.
He says: “Just so there’s no confusion, I’m not affiliated with the production in any way — I’m simply a huge fan of both Frank Darabont and Robert Kirkman, and this is my attempt at creating a cinematic introduction to one of the all time great “continuing stories of survival horror.””
Word got out about Kanemoto’s masterpiece when Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof tweeted about it (“We are arriving at that unique moment in time where the term “fan-made” becomes moot. This is extraordinary.”) and blogger Cory Doctorow posted it on BoingBoing. The video reached an even wider audience when EW’s Jeff Jensen interviewed Kanemoto to discover his inspiration for the spec. You can read said interview here.
Now I am oh-so-interested to see if the editors and animators of the upcoming show can out-perform Kanemoto’s fan-made title sequence. We shall find out when The Walking Dead premieres October 31 at 10PM on AMC.
[Via @DamonLindelof; Vimeo]
Series creator Dan Harmon is ready to take Community to a whole ‘nother level, quite literally in fact. Season 2’s Chistmas episode is going to be entirely stop motion animated, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer-style. Earlier this summer Harmon shared his excitement over the possibily of making such a unique episode. “It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do but, I never anticipated having the ability to do it,” he told NYMag. “Jeff Gaspin at NBC woke up one morning and thought Community should do an animated episode. I was like, ‘Well, that’s weird, because that’s the kind of stuff I’m usually suggesting and guys like him veto.”
Upon hearing news of the holiday surprise, a number of the cast members also couldn’t contain their enthusiasm for it. “It is so hard for me not to tell everybody I know about it,” says Danny Pudi (Abed). “The minute we read that script, I was over-the-moon excited. It’s like that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special that you see every Christmas. But in true Community fashion, it’s also a little subversive and a little dark.” Alison Brie (Annie) said, “When I found out, I fell in love with the show all over again!” Star Joel McHale (Jeff) revealed, “I can confirm that we are not yellow [ie. The Simpsons], and we do not have a talking dog [ie. Family Guy] in the episode. But all your favorite Greendalians will be going animated.”
Can you imagine an animated Senor Chang and Starburns? It’s going to be great. In related news, you should know that Community also has planned a top-secret, big budget Halloween special featuring–you guessed it–zombies! “Knowing too much about this particular plot would ruin it, but I promise it’s an awesome, one-off crazy conceptual episode with plot points and effects that are more familiar to horror film fans than our show’s fans,” says Harmon.
Community returns Thursday (9/23) at 8PM on NBC.
Update: Starting at 7PM ET (one hour prior to the season premiere) the main characters of the show will communicate with one another in a conversation using Twitter. This “Twittersode” is being described as a “prequel” scene to the premiere ep. According to EW, “they’ll make arrangements for their first meet-up of the year, as well as preparations for their first class, Anthropology 101.” A class we all know will be led by the one and only Betty White. You have two options to watch the prequel convo go down: (1) Head over to www.nbc.com/CommunityTwittersode or (2) follow the Community gang on Twitter and watch it happen live in your Twitter feed. Hop after the break to find all the characters’ Twitter handles. (Mind you these are Twitter accounts for the fictional show characters, not the actual actors’ Twitter names.) Happy tweeting!
[Via EW, here, here & here] Continue reading Community is going animated for the Christmas special [Update: “Twittersode” to precede the premiere]
Simple yet effective. One of those videos that gets funnier with repeat viewings.
[Via @kpereira]
Aardman Studios, the animation studio behind Wallace & Gromit, have harnessed their impressive stop-motion skills to create a battle to the death between a walkman and hoover. Watch the fun little animated video above to see who wins.
[Via @kpereira]
Can you believe that Matt Groening’s 1987 creation is coming into its twenty-second season this fall? What’s even more crazy is the awesome list of guest voices The Simpsons team plans to use this season. In the season premiere “Elementary School Musical” Lisa goes to a performance arts camp. There she will be greeted by artsy counselors Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords fame and a bunch of excited campers voiced by Glee‘s Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, and Amber Riley. House‘s Hugh Laurie and Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) will lend their voices to October’s “Treehouse of Horror” episode. Later in the season Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, baseball’s Mike Scioscia, and sports writer Bill James will appear in an episode titled “MoneyBart.” This year’s holiday special “The Fight Before Christmas” will get a kick with Martha Stewart. Other guest voices that will pop up throughout the season: Halle Berry, Ricky Gervais, Paul Rudd, Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live), Rachel Weisz (The Mummy), Alyson Hannigan (How I Met Your Mother), Cheech & Chong, Danica Patrick, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; also Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds) will reprise his role as Fat Tony. Excited? The Simpsons 22 premieres Sunday, September 26 on FOX.
[Via IGN]
Thiago Costa’s Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 physics engine simulates real-life physics like you’ve never seen before. The engine can produce High friction granular materials; Incompressible fluids; Elastic structures; Plastic deformations & more… Can you imagine how video games would look if they utilized something of this magnitude? Virtual reality, here we come.
[Via Gizmodo]
What starts out as a nice animation that “explores how advances in open-source synthetic biology allow a young man to grow his very own action hero” quickly becomes something bizarrely disturbing during the final moments. Watch Tom Judd’s animated short “Bruce” and see for yourself.
[Via @kpereira]
Check out Mike Benson’s “Gnarcade”, a world where classic video game characters and obstacles interact with pro athletes. Pacman, Frogger, and baddies from Super Mario make memorable appearences. But it’s the Portal effect at 2:21 that gets me every time. Beats are provided by Ground Up. Enjoy! (I say “again” in the post title in reference to the awesome NYC pixel takeover.)
..with Sims-like animations! Taiwan’s NMA News is back again to shed some light on what’s being dubbed “Antennagate”, the negative firestorm surrounding the iPhone 4. You don’t have to understand the language to find this news coverage over-the-top, absurd, and yet so right about everything. I mean, who can complain about their animated coverage concerning the Conan O’Brien vs. Jay Leno debacle and the Tiger Woods scandal?
[Via Gizmodo]
Brought to you by the How It Should Have Ended crew.
[Via EW-AusielloFiles]
Remember Beavis and Butt-head? Of course you do! It was that odd-ball animated show created by Mike Judge (King of the Hill) that aired on MTV from 1993-1997. In 1996 the show jumped to the big screen in Beavis and Butt-head Do America. According to REVIEWniverse, Judge is ready to bring the show back. In fact, he’s currently penning 30 new episodes. Judge said that he plans to keep the show in its original aesthetic, faded color palatte and all. The show’s format will also remain the same: “original sketch-music videos-sketch” with modern music videos for the duo to rip on. Judge hopes that MTV will pick up the show; the network has not commented on the matter.
[Via REVIEWniverse; IGN]